***Bob Marley***

Ziggy's kids' album? Tops!! Dad Bob's, with Ziggy in the executive producer's chair? Meh, and here's why...

Full review of Bob Marley's B is for Bob

***Betsy Stern***

Minimalist kids' music at its best! Betsy Stern, a Berkeley, California native, uses her voice and one instrument per song to create a collection of jazzy, earthy, quiet tunes for the whole family.

On her debut children's album, Foyo, Stern plays acoustic guitar, upright bass, and requinto guitar (a smaller-scale guitar), to make "world music" in the most global sense possible: Foyo features songs from France, Spain, Australia, and Haiti, as well as traditional American Folk tunes, all performed in Stern's unique style.

Foyo includes familiar kiddie songs like "Fooba Wooba John" and "Baa Baa Black Sheep," as well as traditional classics like "Crawdad Song," "Mouse on the Hill," and "Cindy." But you haven't heard "This Old Man" until you hear it performed with only vocals and an upright bass.

Check out Stern's stellar fretwork on the title tune, a patois French song from Haiti. The tune was also included on the soundtrack of the 1962 South African musical Wait a Minim! Other standouts are Will D. Cobb and Ren Shields' 1906 dancehall ditty "Waltz Me Around Again Willie;" "Jamaica Farewell," made famous by Harry Belafonte on his 1956 album Calypso; the French folk tune "Câdet Rousselle;" and a couple of classics from Down Under, "Kookabura" and "Waltzing Matilda."

Betsy Stern's Foyo is a great introduction to obscure gems and unique reworkings of familiar tunes. Quality music for young and old alike.

***Miriam Makeba***

In honor of South African songstress Miriam Makeba, who passed just two weeks ago, here's a short review of one of her indispensable albums, Sangoma, recorded in 1988 for Warner Brothers Records. A Sangoma is a traditional healer in southern African cultures, and these songs reflect that sense of history.

All the tunes are sung in Xhosa, a South African dialect, but don't let that deter you from enjoying these prayer songs, parables, lullabies, and gathering songs. Makeba is accompanied by a group of female singers on these traditional melodies, sometimes with sparse percussion, often a cappella style. Good vibes and a joyous spirit radiate from every song on the album.

A great way to introduce your young ones to the beautiful world of music from our beautiful Earth. And, this being 2008 and all, you can immediately download the album or songs for your family's listening pleasure.